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Thermalisation
Thermalisation is a technique employed by the UPT Space Force for manouvering at sublight speeds, first introduced in June 2012. Exploiting technologies derived from Tractor Beams and taking inspiration from the physics of gases, it delivers excellent acceleration without relying on thrusters, and is especially good at reducing stresses experienced by large spacecraft. Principles Thermalisation is centred on momentum and kinetic energy exchange between spacecraft. If a pair of spacecraft are on different courses, and each exerts a force on the other along the line joining them, then that force will alter the course of both spacecraft. With only two spacecraft, there would only be two choices of direction for the force (attractive and repulsive), which would limit the course changes possible. By contrast, in a situation where there are many spacecraft, any of which is able to exert a force on any other, it becomes possible to make essentially any course change desired, with the caveat that another spacecraft needs to make the counterpart change. When used near-continuously by a group of many spacecraft, the overall effect is similar to the motion of particles in a gas, and indeed the exact behaviour can be modelled using the mathematics of stastical mechanics and thermodynamics, hence the name "thermalisation". The spacecraft of a group employing thermalisation will all have random velocities, independent of any overall velocity the group is moving with through space as a whole. The average magnitude of the random velocities of the spacecraft can, just like the random velocities of the particles in a gas, be converted into a temperature. It should be emphasised that this thermalisation temperature or TTemp is completely independent of the temperature of the spacecraft in the traditional sense. Energy is required to initially raise TTemp, but once a group is at a certain TTemp it can remain that way, its spacecraft making constant random course changes, without expending energy on such changes on a continual basis. Implementation Early experiments with thermalisation used the Tractor Beam units already installed on UPT spacecraft. The basic principles were proven, but the Tractor Beam units were unable to handle enough force to give the desired accelerations. Upsizing them would have solved that issue, but at the cost of taking up a lot of the surface of the spacecraft and so reducing weapon numbers. The resolution to this dilemna eluded the UPT Space Force Development Division for some time, until a breakthrough was made based on the observation that Tractor Beams worked fine through the One Way Armour. Development thus commenced on a device with similar functionality to the Tractor Beams, but that would be able to also work through the spacecraft hull, thereby obviating the need to place the units on the outer surface. The resultant device was named the Colour Beam, after the colour force although it bears only a superficial resemblance. Like the Tractor Beam, the Colour Beam works on psychic principles. Unlike Tractor Beams that act on visible ordinary matter, however, Colour Beam units can only act on other colour beam units, which results in the desired ability to operate from deep inside a spacecraft rather than on the surface. By virtue of their different operation, they can also have a greater range than normal Tractor Beams, the ultimate limit being uncertain although the practical limit comes from the light-speed limit that the Colour Beams operate under. Colour Beam units are medium modules, with each spacecraft having a large number of them dotted throughout its hull. This results in reduced stresses on the spacecraft structure, as the accelerating forces are spread over a large number of points instead of being concentrated at one. The envisioned acceleration due to thermalisation is 1 million g. Naturally small craft might accelerate faster than large ones, although the limiting factor on the acceleration often comes from crew survivability. Category:UPT